


You Make Me

by Error401



Series: In and Out [4]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bruised!Glenn, Daryl cares, Gen, Good Cop Bad Cop, M/M, Mild Language, Non-Graphic Violence, Shane is still a jerk, interrogations, no zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Error401/pseuds/Error401
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had to stop because his eyes caught on a messy brown head of hair and cheeks smudged with dirt and flannel and toned biceps. Handcuffs.</p><p>Shane smirked down at Glenn, flicking his eyes to Rick’s for a brief moment. “Recognize someone?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Make Me

It was almost a month later when Glenn stepped tentatively into the police station, blasted with frigid air in sharp contrast to the sweltering Georgia heat that was melting everything outside. 

His bruises were all virtually healed, the deeper ones barely clinging to yellow around his once-broken ribs. They didn’t hurt anymore, for which he was eternally grateful, because he was afraid that no matter how well he got on with his boss and landlord, they’d still need to collect from him at some point. He was on the streets getting back into his delivery routine, and he hated that he was more skittish than he’d been before, more wary of the homeless that he’d never felt threatened by and the strangers that passed him on the sidewalk.

He had to pick up a second job to be able to earn the backed up rent and food and hospital expenses, and while he admitted to himself that it could have been much worse, he still hated waiting tables with a passion. Not that he wasn’t good at it—he was—but it carried too many memories of his college days, and with those only came the crippling depression. He’d tried his hand for something better, but no matter how off the charts his IQ score was, no one was willing to hire someone who’d never finished school.

He took a moment to appreciate the cool before going another step inside. The deputies, Rick and Shane, gave him annoyed glances from where they flanked his sides—well, more so Shane than Rick but Glenn still blushed and nodded in apology to both, partly because he was kind of afraid of how Shane would react. Only, he didn’t continue forward. He had to stop because his eyes caught on a messy brown head of hair and cheeks smudged with dirt and flannel and toned biceps. Handcuffs. 

Shane smirked down at Glenn, flicking his eyes to Rick’s for a brief moment. “Recognize someone?”

“Why…?” was all Glenn could come up with.

He’d heard nothing about the guys who attacked him all month, and suddenly they’d asked him to come down to the station to make a positive identification. He told them he’d be bad at it, that he didn’t remember faces, but then Shane had commandeered the phone and he’d been kind of too freaked out to say no. 

“Why don’t we go into the conference room?” Rick said, placing a hand between Glenn’s shoulder blades and giving him a little nudge forward. “C’mon, now.”

And then Daryl looked up and straight at Glenn, recognition dawning in his dark gaze. His eyes narrowed. Glenn could hear Shane laughing behind him. 

The conference room looked an awful lot like the interrogation room, with a wooden table and two plastic chairs seated on either side of it. Rick led Glenn to one of the chairs while he and Shane moved to the opposite side, Rick taking the chair while Shane half-sat, half-stood on the table top. “Now, Glenn, I know you don’t wanna’ feel like you’re betrayin’ the person that helped you,” Rick began. “But Daryl Dixon is not a good person. You know why he’s in there? He beat a man half to death with a tire iron.”

“He had to be pried off the guy,” Shane added. “He didn’t even care he had blood gettin’ all over his hands and face, just kept swingin’ away.”

“I don’t understand,” Glenn said, glancing between them, his gut starting to roil with anxiety. “Why…why are you telling me this?”

“We know Dixon did it,” Shane growled. “But nobody’s willin’ to testify. Bastard’s got them shakin’ in their damn boots.”

“But if you can tell us that he’s the one who attacked you,” Rick said gently, “We can get this monster off the streets, send him to lockup with that crazy brother ‘a his.”

“Let me get this straight,” Glenn said. “You want me to lie about Daryl helping me because you have zero evidence that he’s done anything wrong?”

“There’s a poor bastard lyin’ in a hospital bed!” Shane menaced. 

Glenn felt the anger building, and it overrode everything else. “You just told me he was found beating the guy to death, which obviously is a lie, otherwise you wouldn’t need me,” Glenn said quietly. “Daryl’s the one that helped me when I was attacked. Daryl’s the one that drove me home because he thought I was too hurt to do it myself. You? What have you done for me? Threatened me in my own home and tried to get me to perjure myself? Say whatever you want, but I’m not helping you.” 

Not again. He would never do it again.

“You little Asian piece of—“ Shane exploded, seemingly unable to resist grabbing the back of Glenn’s neck and slamming his face into the table, pressing his cheek harshly against the grain. Glenn’s baseball cap was knocked from his head, and he had no idea where it ended up, probably crushed underneath one of Shane’s big feet. 

The panic came naturally as Glenn tried to lift his head up, but Shane was huge and Glenn had just spent a month on the couch in recovery. His hands scrabbled uselessly at Shane’s meaty wrist, and he couldn’t get any purchase due to the awkwardness of the angle. The hand pressed harder and harder until Glenn could almost feel the blood vessels popping one by one under his skin.

“Shane, damn it!” Rick cried. “He’s not a suspect! Let him go!”

Glenn didn’t know if Shane realized that Glenn wasn’t actually a criminal or if he just listened to Rick, but the pressure was suddenly gone and Glenn didn’t know what to do with himself other than to sit back up and probe at his cheek with a few fingers, try not to curl in on himself and shake. Definitely would be feeling that for the next week. “I’m leaving,” he said breathily, voice wavering in fear that he couldn’t suppress. He glanced between Shane and Rick again, waiting. 

“Get outta’ here, kid,” Rick said. He looked like he was going to say something else, but just shook his head at Shane. Glenn was thankful that he didn’t try to apologize, because then he probably would have lost it.

Shakily, Glenn stood up, never turning his back on the two, and back-pedaled to the door. “You guys contact me again, and I’m putting in an official complaint,” he tried to sound threatening. Failed. 

His hand was trembling as he pushed the door open, and he hated himself a little bit. He shuffled back out into the bullpen, eyes peering into the chaos for those narrowed brown eyes, but Daryl wasn’t there. He sighed, rubbing at his face. 

And he’d just gotten rid of the last ones.

When he made it to his apartment, he shut the door and leaned his back against hit, letting his head fall back to hit the wood. The last time he’d been in an interrogation room, his whole world had fallen apart. He’d ruined two lives, and he wouldn’t let anyone bully him into doing that ever again.

He jumped at the loud thunk that hit the door so hard it shook on its hinges. Not for the first time, he cursed his lack of a spy hole. “Open up!” the voice on the other side snarled. He knew that voice. Turning, cursing at his still-unsteady hands, he opened the door only to catch a forearm to the neck that pushed him back into his apartment and against the divider wall that separated his living room from the kitchenette. “Listen up, you slant-eyed—“ Daryl started, before getting a look at Glenn’s face. “The fuck happened to you?”

Glenn shook his head quickly, pushing at the arm that was choking him, and Daryl relented, taking a step back. “Nothing,” Glenn rasped, fingering his throat. 

“Nothing my ass,” Daryl said, reaching his hand up slowly so as not to startle Glenn and using his thumb and index finger to turn Glenn’s head from side to side. “Someone hit ya?”

Glenn sighed. “The cops wanted me to say you did something, but I wouldn’t do it.”

“Was that fucker Walsh, weren’t it?” Daryl scowled. “He’s got bricks for brains, that bastard.” He used a finger to brush the blossoming bruise, frown deepening at Glenn’s wince. “Dumber ‘n a box a locks.”

“Why do they have it out for you so bad? You don’t seem…” Glenn trailed off. Because, really, Daryl did seem.

“My brother mighta’ slept with Walsh’s woman once. Or twice.” Daryl shrugged. “Guy ain’t right in the head, gets all crazy where Merle’s concerned.”

“So he’s not gonna’ stop, is he?” Glenn asked. “He’s gonna’ keep trying to pin something on you until it sticks.”

“He cain’t do nothin’ to me,” Daryl said, running a hand through his tangled hair. “It’s you I’m concerned with.”

“M-me?” Glen worried at his bottom lip. “Why?”

“You made him mad,” Daryl smirked. “We know how well that turns out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Still doing okay? I totally admit that I want you guys to like me.


End file.
